Hello and welcome back to the Weekly Update! We’ve got some small new features added this week, from being able to run multiple Neos clients on the same computer, to the new laser-grab rotation feature!
On this Wednesday’s crash course stream we also showed you how to build a completely new interactive Twitch chat command from scratch and we have more development progress on Facets and Containers.
[h2]Learn how to build your own interactive Twitch commands![/h2]
On this Wednesday’s crash course livestream we went in detail over the streaming functionality in Neos, showing you how to use the interactive camera, camera anchors and other tools to the fullest for both filming and livestreaming in Neos VR.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
In the latter part of the video we went even further and built a completely new interactive Twitch command from scratch, so users can type !zeus into the Twitch chat, causing the whole world to darken, a cloud form above the particular user and a lightning strike that zaps them out of existence!
Giving the Twitch chat this level of interactivity allows to make your streams a lot more compelling and fun and thanks to the flexibility of LogiX, our visual programming language, you can make pretty much anything to happen with the Twitch chat commands! Give the full video a watch if you’d like to learn more!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Eg7NoupuU
[h2]Please vote on the User-Blocking feature priority![/h2]
Last week we have asked you to let us know what you think about prioritizing the User Blocking feature for Neos on GitHub, but unfortunately we haven’t gathered enough feedback to make a solid decision yet.
We’ve created a poll on Patreon where you can vote to let us know your preference. If you’re not a Patreon supporter, feel free to reach out to any of the team members to let us know your preference on this (particularly if you need this functionality urgently).
Our goal here is to determine if we should prioritize this feature right now, because it’s needed by some of the users or if the situation is manageable enough so it can wait a bit more. Please let us know, even if it's on behalf of a friend or another user!
One of your main concerns was the possibility to create a negative culture, where users are permanently blocked over trivial matters. To avoid this, we plan on making the mechanism such, that the quick single-click block is temporary (1 day probably) and making it longer or permanent requires a few more additional clicks afterwards.
This should be enough to discourage users from permanently blocking everyone, while not being too difficult to use in genuinely distressing situations.
However with the current UI, we don't have the flexibility to implement it in a such way. Which gives us a few choices.
We can implement it right now, either as permanent or temporary block and then expand when the UI is reworked within a few weeks. Or we can delay the implementation completely until then.
This is a tricky topic and because it's you, who's mainly affected by this change, we want to let you to decide on how urgently do you need this functionality, so please let us know!
Also note, this poll isn't necessarily about the option that gets most votes, but to gauge need for this functionality and if we should prioritize it in a more limited form over the UI and expand later.
[h2]Laser-grab Rotation Feature[/h2]
Now, when you grab an item with your laser, you can rotate the object by double-clicking your trigger and rotating your wrist. This will give users a lot more control when they want to place objects precisely. No more wondering if your videos or pictures are hanging perfectly! This is great for placing furniture around a room as well, as you will always know that the bottom of the furniture will always be aligned perfectly with the floor.
This new feature coincides nicely with the trigger activated aligner. If you haven’t read about this feature before, it’s very useful! When you grab an object with your laser and pull the trigger, the object being grabbed will align itself along the Y axis. It will do this based on what sides of the object are closest to the Y axis, so if you grab a pot for example that is facing up mostly normally, it’ll straighten it out completely when you pull the trigger. If it’s leaning much further to the side, it’ll orient fully sideways.
[h2]Running multiple graphical instances and overriding profile path[/h2]
One of the new additions this week was the ability to run multiple graphical instances of Neos on the same computer by using a different profile for each. This can be achieved by a new command-line argument -DataPath , which will override where Neos stores the user profile and asset database.
Additionally you can also override where the cache is stored by using -CachePath , but this is optional. Neos has its own locking mechanism, which will make sure that each profile is only used by a single active instance at the time, but other than that you can run as many instances as your computer can handle.
This can be very useful for certain development and research tasks, which is one of the reasons this feature was added in the first place. The Canadian Research group is developing and training AI agents in Neos and this feature allows the AI agent to run alongside a regular Neos VR session.
[h2]Progress on Facets and Containers[/h2]
Our current main focus, the new Radiant UI has passed an important milestone. The core of the Facet and Container system has now been implemented and tested with a grid container as you can see in the video below.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Each colored square is a single Facet - a piece of UI which can contain anything (for testing purposes it’s just a solid color that acts as a button) and which defines on how it can be sized. Each facet defines its minimal and maximum size, supported aspect ratios and recommended sizes.
This information is then used by containers to place the facets within them. Each container defines its own rules and style of placement, but it will make sure to follow the specifications defined by the facet itself.
The first container to be implemented and one that will likely be the most common one is the grid container. This simply fits multiple facets into a grid, automatically finding available free space or letting users define their own size.
Now that this core interaction is in place, we can continue polishing and building upon it and designing other parts of the system. This makes the process significantly easier and faster, as things will more easily fall into place once the technical details of the initial part of system is settled on.
[h2]Community Highlights[/h2]
[h3]Neos VR in the news for education[/h3]
Neos made it to the news again! Students and educators at CQUniversity took a virtual field-trip to an island to learn how to measure water PH! The session was led by SHFR, where the students would get in their virtual boat and ride up to research buoys, collecting water samples to help keep the virtual world healthy.
[h3]Momo, by Gearbell, Vigilabo, and Shalefoot[/h3]
This little bird, originally made by Gearbell, has been given the ability to fly to other users by Shalefoot’s command! The command gesture system was written by Vigilabo, who has created many fun and interesting LogiX projects.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[h2]What’s Next?[/h2]
Having the core of the Facet & Container system implemented, we’re now designing and implementing the rest of the system, including Workspaces and the new dash. Once this is ready we’ll wrap the existing UI windows into the Facets and then swap out the dash for the new one.
After that, we can rework and expand the UI piece by piece, allowing for a lot more gradual transition and continuous feedback rather than dropping everything at once. This will help us sort out the bugs and utilize your feedback to the fullest extent.
Thank you again for reading our Weekly Update! Things are starting to pick up speed with the UI update, so make sure to check for the weekly updates as we’ll have a lot more to showcase! Stay safe!
